Kingdom of Spain
Government: parliamentary constitutional monarchy
Ruler: King Alfenso XIII
Area: 200,000 SQM
Population: 20 million
Military: 140,000 men 2 battleships, 6 cruisers, a dozen torpedo ships, and a half dozen smaller
craft
The largest groups inhabiting the Iberian Peninsula before the Roman conquest were the
Iberians and the Celts.
The Iberians inhabited the Mediterranean side of the peninsula, from the northeast to the
southeast.
The Celts inhabited much of the inner and Atlantic sides of the peninsula, from the
northwest to the southwest.
Basques occupied the western area of the Pyrenees mountain range and adjacent areas, The cultures
of the Celtic and Iberian populations were gradually Romanised and the region served
as a granary for the Roman market as well as exporting gold, wool, olive oil, wine among
other products.
Agricultural production increased with the introduction of irrigation systems, some of
which remain in use to this day.
Christianity was introduced into the region in the 1st century and it became popular in
the cities in the 2nd century.
Most of Spain's present languages and religion, as well as the basis of its laws, originate
from this period.
The weakening of the Western Roman Empire's in Hispania began in 409, when the Suebi and
the Vandals entered the peninsula at the invitation of a Roman usurper.
The Suebi established a kingdom in modern Galicia and the Vandals established themselves
in southern Spain, took over North Africa ten years later.
As the western Roman empire disintegrated, the social and economic base in Spain became
greatly simplified.
The successor regimes maintained many of the institutions and laws of the late empire,
including Christianity and assimilation to the Roman culture.
The Eastern Roman Empire established themselves in the southern edges of Spain and North Africa
with the intention of reviving Roman rule throughout Iberia.
After the Gothic wars in the mid 6th century, the empire lacked the funds to keep control
of the conquered territory, and Visigoths re-captured the region.
The Visigoths eventually converted to Christianity, in a large part due to the following of a
local archbishop.
This kingdom was the first Christian kingdom ruling in the Iberian Peninsula.
Insert centuries of conflict between the Moors armies against Christian states in Iberia
as well as a significant battle with the Franks during the eighth century that will get its
own video and you have the Iberian Union being formed between the kingdoms of Castille and
Aragon who three decades later defeated the Emeriate of Granada, the last Islamic state
in Iberia, marking the end of the nearly 800 year presence in the region.
I'm not going to talk in detail about the colonial side of things since that, again,
will have its own video in the future.
Over the years you had Spanish colonies established over pretty much all of Central and South
America (minus Brazil) as well as Mexico, Florida, the carrebian and some land in Africa
and the Far East.
The nations grew to it's peak during throughout the 16th century as the Hapsburg land in the
Rhineland were absorbed and a union with the Portuguese crown was established.
Events in Europe were a massive monetary drain for the crown, which gained a massive amount
of wealth from the gold and silver from its American colonies.
These funds were used to fight nearly constant wars in Europe like the Italian wars, war
against the low lands, wars against France, England, clashes with the Ottoman Empire,
War of Spanish succession which saw Spain lose its continental strength across Europe
and many more.
On the eve of the great war, Spain had been in major decline for over a century, dating
it's more rapid decline since the Napoleonic wars, the French attempt to take-over Spain
led to a series of Independence wars in its American colonies which were all eventually
successful.
The Three Carlist wars through-out the mid 19th century further destablised the country
and deepened a political divide that had re-approachment and compromise difficult.
A revolution in 68 ousted the monarchy from Power which was restored in 74 after a failed
Republic.
Decades long Cuban and Filipino wars for independence took up the remainder of the 19th century,
which, in 1898, the United States of America came in, went yonk and later had to brutally
put down the independence movements , especially in the Philippines..
At this time, both the navy and army faced problems that included their inadequate organization
and difficult relations with the government and with society.
Although the Prussian army , had become a reference point and model for Spanish military
reformist in the last third of the 19th century, substantial changes were not achieved.
The Prussian army was formed of conscripted soldiers, but in Spain, the conscription laws
of the 1870s and 1880s had created a conservative and old-fashioned army in which only the poorest,
who were incapable of paying for their exemption, were called up, and the officer class was
very top heavy.
With around one officer for every fifteen soldiers.
The regular army was largely viewed as expendable, and they had a series lack of proper or modern
equipment and training.
In Germany and other industrialized countries, the arms industry invigorated the economy,
as the army and navy played an important role in the market.
In Spain, however, these forces were not clients: instead, they both failed to stimulate industrial
development and bled the state budgets dry, while acting as an autonomous body.
The Spanish American War of 1898 showed these problems in full force.
While the war had few causalities, the Spanish lost their possessions of Puerto Rico, Cuba,
Guam and the Philippines, leaving it the land of Equatorial Guinea, and Morocco as their
only over-seas empire.
Colonial conflict in Morocco became the main focus of military activity and spending with
half of the peace-time army stationed their.
Meanwhile, what was left of the navy after 1898, had to wait until 1908 to gain approval
for a program of shipbuilding that slightly improved the situation.
In 1907, Spain, France and Britain signed the Cartagena agreement, A treaty protecting
the status quo of the Mediterranean possessions and a later agreement was reached in 1912
that helped lessen tensions in Morocco between Spain and France.
Two weeks after war was declared.
The Spanish government, headed by Prime Minister Edwardo Dato declared their neutrality and
the reaction was pretty mixed in the public.
A small majority of the public was mostly un-interested in the war at large and the
rest was split between which side they supported.
the aristocracy, the church and the military, supported by the right-wing parties such as
the Carlists among others, supported the Central Powers as they viewed them as beholden to
more traditional ideas and costumes.
While, middle-class professionals and the petty bourgeoisie, supported by the liberal,
left wing, republican, anti-clerical groups and many intellectuals supported the Entente,
as they viewed the Entente as the harbingers of political reform and a way to bring about
democratic changes to Spain.
However, a strict 1906 law, controlled the free press and outlawed speech against the
Spanish government which was enforced by the army.
King Alfenso the thirteenth intervened a very large amount in both domestic and foreign
policy, much more then other constitutional monarchs in Europe.
This was due to the rather weak control that the Spanish congress had over the kings influence.
Alfenso had stated that he would have supported the Entente had the French given him Tangiers
and concessions in Morocco.
Instead, he used his position to gain favorable deals with the warring states.
Hearing out offers from both sides for most of the war in-case one seemed to achieve a
victory causing break-through.
While this was occurring, he attempted to send large amounts of humanitarian aid to
both sides to ease the suffering as best as his nation could.
Iberia had been seen as a major alliance against the Central Powers at the start of the war.
The Entente viewed that having Spain and Portugal on their side would counter-balance warring
the Italians.
But with the Italians joining the allies in late 1915 and Portugal joining a few months
later, the military needs from Spain had mostly been removed.
Some in the allied high command still wanted to put pressure on Spain to join, mostly for
commerce and supply related reasons but they were a rather small minority.
At this point, the cost of having Spain join would likely outweigh the benefits so the
proposals for joining the war pretty much stopped.
Although Madrid tried to escape from the conflict, the war impacted on Spain with an explosion
of exports towards new markets that had been abandoned by the fighting powers, and a fall
in imports, the economy as a whole improved to a large degree, as the arms industry, boomed,
and many home-grown arms shops coming up all around Spain.
While this caused a nightmare for the buyers due to quality issues, it created a booming
industry in Spain.
This was also met with an increase in the textile industry to produce uniforms, coal
exports and mined material which was the first time in Modern history that Spain had a trade
surplus.
They were even able to erase there national debt.
The decrease in imports, explosion in external demand, and the increasing circulation of
money did provoke rapid inflation while many basic commodities became rather scarce.
The situation was exacerbated by the collapse of the transport network which was rather
ineffective in the first place.
All of this was added to the flourishing of contraband trade which only worsened the problem
of scarcity.
In 1916, bread prices rose by 25% while beef prices rose anywhere from 30% to 66%.
This caused some radicalization of the populace that was further fueled by the Russian revolution
in early 1917, it emboldened Socialists, communists and even anarchists to unite against the government.
Prior to this, the Army and Catalan merchant class had done their best to act against the
ruling government and King.
The armies salaries had been frozen since the end of 1914 and both the conservative
Dato government and the liberal Preito government had instituted army reforms that aimed to
reduce the bloated officer class, making the promotion based on merit, rather then just
seniority.
In response to this, they found political allies in the Catalan merchant class and established
their own Junta units all along the Catalan province.
This alliance came into immediate conflict with the government under Garc a Prieto when
he demanded the dissolution of the Juntas.
Alfenso, sided with the Juntas and the Spanish government was arrested, with it being replaced
by Dato once again, with more action taken against the free press and a recognition of
the Juntas.
The Kings new government under Dado was pretty hated on all sides and was heavily divided,
making many believe that the monarchy was soon to fall.
Many groups allied themselves with the Military and the Catalan merchants, who took a part
in political scene once again.
This led to a revolutionary strike in April of 1917 where workers movements rose up in
rebellion in the Basque and Catalan regions.
It was largely confined to only a few cities and the military was able to suppress it.
They managed to gain huge political influence in these regions post strike, and it all cultivated
in the 1923 coup that brought Miguel Primo de Rivera into power, suspending the Constitution
and instituting Martial Law.